School Days

May is drawing to a close and June is around the corner. That means, schools re-open here in Bangalore. And that means, a quantum increase in traffic volumes at 8 a.m.

Since I’m not working now and don’t have to join the millions making their daily commute to the workplace, the increase in traffic volumes is largely theoretical for me right now. But for how long?

I’ve just got the letters informing us that the eagerly anticipated day when the twins join their new school is set for 10 June. At first, they will spend only an hour or so at school, and parents have to stay with them. Probably in the second week, they will start following regular hours, 8.30 to 12.30. Then I’ll be spending much of my day in the driver’s seat – literally, unfortunately, not figuratively – with a 15 km round trip twice a day. Not only will the school time traffic suddenly be highly relevant to me, I’ll be part of it.

While the kids starting school means I’ll have a few hours of peace in the morning, which is not a given when Shaba-Aunty is home with the twins, it will also be good for the kids to get out. Last year, when going through the admission process, I kept feeling they were too small for school – but that was then. Now, I no longer think so. They can talk quite a bit now, and have become more socially-oriented: they look forward to meeting their park friends every evening – kids and adults alike – and cry out loud to meet other friends whom they see less frequently. And, keeping them occupied and engaged at home in the morning is full-time work. What’s more, it’s getting more and more difficult to tire them out sufficiently so they’ll fall asleep after lunch. Today they stayed up babbling and playing games for two whole hours, before finally falling asleep! School should take care of that, or so I hope. (How do parents (specially SAHMs) manage in those countries where school starts at age 6???)

So while I’m happy they’re going to be starting school soon (and honestly, the sooner, the better!), what I’m still not sure about is packing them off to school in the school bus. They still seem too small for that experience. Won’t it be scary, being in a bus full of big kids, no known faces around, being trundled around town for 30 or 40 minutes before making it to the only slightly familiar and less scary environment of school? True, there are two of them, and true, too, that other kids their age do it and survive, but still…

I don’t really want to be doing the dropping and picking up chauffeur service, though. It will certainly be fun talking to them on the way to and from school, but it is going to break up the morning in a quite disruptive fashion. Sending them off by bus means I get a whole five hours or so to do my stuff. Getting Amit to drop them on his “way” to work (it’s not really on his way) means investing in another set of car seats. Sigh. Problems, problems.

More interesting – and a bit worrying – is that certain memories that they form now can potentially last forever. Don’t you remember your very early days at school or preschool? I have vague memories of nursery, and even hazier ones of pre-nursery. I remember a friend from pre-nursery – or rather, I remember the name of a friend, and the concept of a friend as someone you did everything together with, more than the person herself. I remember howling my head off in nursery because a boy took my sketch pens and didn’t give them back. I remember another boy (or perhaps the same one) turning his eyelids inside out (boys are gross!) and scaring the hell out of me. I remember, strangely enough, the room that was the nursery or kindergarten room, and my seat in the room. I remember other things about the school, like the building and the grounds, and even the teachers; but those memories formed over the years, as I continued in that school till I was ten. But the earliest of my school day memories must date from a little over three years of age.

And now the twins are going to start collecting their own set of forever memories. I always loved school, my sister pretty much hated it. I wonder why that happens. It is so much easier to enjoy school than to dislike it, I hope I can help my girls to grow to love it and to build a set of happy memories.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 28th, 2009 at 4:05 pm and is filed under twins. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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3 Responses to School Days

Also now very soon you and A will stop being the centre of their universe which will be filled with teachers, friends, bus friends (when they do take the bus) and so on. Should be interesting. If initially the separation is handled nicely. All the best.